Major metros like Delhi and Mumbai face huge water and environmental crises as infrastructure tries to keep pace with the increasing population, says a new study of 71 Indian cities. The report, Excreta Matter, prepared by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), comes at a time when India is urbanising at the highest rate in the world and half of all Indians are expected to be living in cities by...

-PTI The government may grant the Income Tax department powers to re-open tax returns of beyond six years in specific cases of black money where "foreign assets" are involved. The I-T department needs these powers to pursue the ongoing cases where funds were found to be stashed abroad and these came to light after India received a classified list of bank account holders which include those in HSBC bank Geneva and LGT...

-The Times of India   Days after the arrest of RSS worker Kamal Chouhan in connection with the Samjhauta Express blast case, the home ministry on Thursday said "more arrests will be made leading to the solving" of a number of terror cases including Malegaon, Modassa and Ajmer Shariff blasts. The ministry said six terror cases were being reinvestigated and one of them (Modassa in Gujarat) was on the verge of being solved....

Discovery of a deadly form of TB in a Mumbai hospital  underscores mismanagement In December last, when doctors at Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai raised the alarm over a deadly form of tuberculosis, the Union health ministry was quick to refute the claim. In its press release on January 17, the ministry said the term “totally drug resistant TB” is “misleading”; it is neither recognised by the national programme for TB control...

-The Hindu Inclusive growth can be possible only in an inclusive society, Bhalchandra Mungekar, president, Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, said on Monday. Scheduled castes and tribes, and minorities constitute a majority among the people below poverty line, accounting for one-third of the country's population. Existence of 40 crore people below poverty line even 60 years after Independence was a cause for immense concern, Dr. Mungekar said, cautioning that the situation was...